System and method for secured delivery of creatives

ABSTRACT

A method of creating and delivering an on-demand audio asset for inclusion in a creative is described. The method includes the steps of accessing a central processing environment, requesting at least one recording of at least a portion of an audio transmission generated from a communication device, generating at least one audio asset, adding the audio asset to a pool of related assets stored in a vault connected to the central processing environment, selecting the generated audio asset and at least one other related asset from the pool of related assets to form a creative, then requesting delivery of the creative to another communication device, and finally delivering the creative to the other communication device. The method is performed in part by a creative composition engine, which is also described. The engine includes a central processing environment having a processor, a digital recorder and a digital asset storage vault.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.13/015,758, entitled “System and Method For Secured Delivery ofCreatives”, filed Jan. 28, 2011, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 12/833,143, entitled “System and Method forSecured Delivery of Creatives”, filed Jul. 9, 2010, which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/466,091,entitled “System And Method For On-Demand Delivery Of Audio Content forUse With Entertainment Creatives”, filed May 14, 2009, which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/221,058,entitled “System And Method For Distributing Content For Use WithEntertainment Creatives Including Consumer Messaging”, filed Jul. 30,2008, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser.No. 12/220,916, entitled “System and Method For Preemptive BrandAffinity Content Distribution”, filed Jul. 29, 2008.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/220,916 is: a continuation-in-partof U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/144,194, entitled “System andMethod for Brand Affinity Content Distribution and Optimization”, filedJun. 23, 2008; claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent ApplicationSer. No. 61/065,297, entitled “System and Method of AssessingQualitative and Quantitative Use of a Brand”, filed Feb. 7, 2008; andclaims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No.61/131,386, entitled “Apparatus, System and Method for a Brand AffinityEngine Using Positive and Negative Mentions”, filed Jun. 6, 2008.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/144,194 is: a continuation-in-partof U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/981,646, entitled “Engine, Systemand Method for Generation of Brand Affinity Content”, filed Oct. 31,2007; a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.11/981,837, entitled “An Advertising Request And Rules-Based ContentProvision Engine, System and Method”, filed Oct. 31, 2007, now U.S. Pat.No. 7,809,603 issued on Oct. 5, 2010; a continuation-in-part of U.S.patent application Ser. No. 12/072,692, entitled “Engine, System andMethod For Generation of Brand Affinity Content”, filed Feb. 27, 2008;and a continuation in part of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/079,769, entitled “Engine, System and Method for Generation of BrandAffinity Content”, filed Mar. 27, 2008.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/981,837 claims priority to U.S.Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/993,096, entitled “System and Methodfor Rule-Based Generation of Brand Affinity Content”, filed Sep. 7,2007, and is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/981,646.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/079,769 is a continuation-in-part ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/042,913, entitled “Engine, Systemand Method for Generation of Brand Affinity Content,” filed Mar. 5,2008, which is also a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent applicationSer. No. 12/072,692.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/072,692 is a continuation-in-part ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/981,646.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is directed to a creative generation engine and,more particularly, to an engine for the secure delivery of asset-relatedcontent, and a method of making and using the same.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

It is well understood that high impact advertising is that advertisingthat best grabs the attention of a target consumer. A target consumer isthe ideal customer for the particular goods being advertised, from asocio-economic perspective, from a morals and values perspective, froman age or interest level perspective, or based on other similar factors.

The impact on an ideal customer of any particular advertisement may beimproved if an advertisement includes endorsements, sponsorships, oraffiliations from those persons, entities, or the like from whom theideal target consumer is most likely, or highly likely, to seekguidance, to identify with, and/or to generally empathize with. Morespecifically, a customer experiences the greatest impact fromadvertising, and all aspects of entertainment in general, that thecustomer can best relate to. Consequently, factors that will typicallyincrease the impact of an asset for inclusion in any type of creative,be it an advertisement or entertainment, include the asset's perceivedknowledge of particular goods or in a particular industry of interest tothat customer, the fame or popularity of the asset as perceived by thatcustomer, the respect typically accorded a particular asset by thosesimilarly situated to that customer, the identification with the assetby the target customer, and other similar factors.

Consequently, the highest impact advertising time or block available forsale will generally be time that is associated, such as both within theadvertisement and within the program with which the advertisement isassociated, with an endorser or entertainment most likely to have highimpact on the ideal target customer. Similarly, the most expensiveentertainment is that which is most likely to have the greatest numberof customers interested in, or identifying with, that entertainment.However, the existing art makes little use of this reality.

Thus, there exists a need for an engine, system and method that allowsfor the obtaining of an asset or assets, such as the provision ofadvertisements or entertainment having associated therewith the one ormore assets, in order to generate the aforementioned high-impactcircumstances.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

A method of creating and delivering an on-demand audio asset forinclusion in a creative is described. The method includes the steps ofaccessing, from a first electrical communication device, a centralprocessing environment via a computerized telecommunications network,then requesting at least one recording of at least a portion of an audiotransmission generated from the first electrical communication device,then generating at least one audio asset, wherein the at least one audioasset includes the at least one recording of the at least a portion ofthe audio transmission, then adding the at least one audio asset to apool of related assets stored in a vault that is connected to thecentral processing environment via the computerized telecommunicationsnetwork, then selecting, from the pool of audio assets in the vault, theat least one generated audio asset and at least one other related assetfrom the pool of related assets to form a creative, then requestingdelivery of the creative to a second electrical communication device,and finally delivering the creative to the second electricalcommunication device via the computerized telecommunications network.

A creative composition engine is also described. The engine includes acentral processing environment that includes at least one processor, adigital recorder and a digital asset storage vault, wherein the digitalrecorder records at least a portion of an audio transmission from afirst electrical communication device connected to the centralprocessing environment via a computerized telecommunications network,for inclusion into a pool of related audio assets stored in the vault,and wherein the central processing environment generates a creativecomprising the at least one recording and at least one other relatedasset from the pool for delivery to a second electrical communicationdevice.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

The present invention will be described hereinbelow in conjunction withthe following figures, in which like numerals represent like items, andwherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of aspects of the presentinvention;

FIG. 2 illustrates a consumer messaging system according to an aspect ofthe present invention; and

FIG. 3 is a flow chart illustrative of a method for generating anon-demand audio asset for inclusion into a creative, according to anaspect of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart illustrative of a method for generating anon-demand audio asset for inclusion into a creative, according to anaspect of the present invention;

FIG. 5 is a flow chart illustrative of a method for generating anon-demand audio asset for inclusion into a creative, according to anaspect of the present invention;

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrative of a method for generating anon-demand audio asset for inclusion into a creative, according to anaspect of the present invention; and

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrative of a method for generating anon-demand audio asset for inclusion into a creative, according to anaspect of the present invention;

FIG. 8 illustrates an exemplary embodiment of aspects of the presentinvention;

FIGS. 9a -f illustrate exemplary embodiments of aspects of the presentinvention;

FIGS. 10a -b illustrate exemplary embodiments of aspects of the presentinvention; and

FIG. 11 is a flow chart illustrative of a method for generating anon-demand audio asset for inclusion into a creative, according to anaspect of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a flow chart illustrative of aspects of the herein disclosedmethods.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

It is to be understood that the figures and descriptions of the presentinvention have been simplified to illustrate elements that are relevantfor a clear understanding of the present invention, while eliminating,for the purposes of clarity, many other elements found in typicalcomputing engines, systems and methods. Those of ordinary skill in theart will recognize that other elements are desirable and/or required inorder to implement the present invention. However, because such elementsare well known in the art, and because they do not facilitate a betterunderstanding of the present invention, a discussion of such elements isnot provided herein.

As used herein, a “creative” is and includes, for example, anadvertisement, a form of entertainment, or the like, and a creative maypreferably be composed, for example, from one or more media assets ofinterest to the composer of the creative. The media assets typicallyinclude media assets that are, or are related to, other assets, such as:snippets of movies or television, or of celebrities in movies ortelevision; audio, video or stills showing celebrities or sportsfigures; photos or video of well known locales, animals, etc. In theinstant invention, the media assets may be used exclusively to generatethe composed creative, or the media assets may be added to other assets,or placed with other items in a per-existing template, to generate thecomposed creative.

It is generally accepted that a creative having the highest impact onthe desired consumer base includes relationships, endorsements,sponsorships, or affiliations from or to those persons, entities,things, or the like to whom the targeted consumers most relate, such asbased on the endorser's knowledge of particular goods or in a particularindustry of interest to the subject consumer, the fame of anentertainment media asset as understood by the subject consumer, therespect or desirability typically accorded a particular asset, and othersimilar factors. For example, the easiest manner in which to selladvertising time or blocks of advertising time is to relay to aparticular advertiser that the advertising time purchased by thatadvertiser will be used in connection with an audio visual work that hasan endorsement therein for that particular advertiser's brand of goodsor services, thus implying that the advertiser's goods or services arealready endorsed by the composer of the subject audio visual work. Asused herein, such a relationship, endorsement, sponsorship, oraffiliation with another asset within a creative may include anassertion of use of a particular good or service by an actor, actress,or subject in the audio visual work, reference to a need for aparticular types of goods or services in the audio visual work, or anactual endorsement of the use of a product within the audio visual work,for example.

An allowable relationship, endorsement, sponsorship, or affiliation maybe limited in certain ways, as will be apparent to those skilled in theart. Such limitations may include: geographic limitations on the use ofparticular assets (for example, endorsers are more likely to endorselocally in various locales rather than nationally endorse, in partbecause national endorsements bring a single endorsement fee andgenerally preclude the repetitious collection of many smaller fees formany local endorsements), or limits on the use of certain assets withcertain other assets; or limitations on use in particular creatives orindustries, such as wherein a different product, different service,different industry, or competitive entertainment is or may be endorsed,related, sponsored or affiliated (such as in a different geographicalarea) by the same asset relationship, endorser, sponsor, or affiliate;or limitations on relationships, endorsements, sponsorships, oraffiliations solely to a particular field(s) or type(s) of product,service or entertainment. For example, certain media assets may beemployed only with regard to certain offerings, such as wherein certainmovie snippets are made available only to those composers who wish togenerate creative showing their respective avatars in that/those moviesnippets.

Further, asset relationships, endorsements, sponsorships, oraffiliations by particular endorsers may be limited to products, brandsor products or services, types of products or services, or the likewhich are approved by one or more entities external from, but affiliatedwith, the specific endorser. For example, the National Football Leaguemay allow for its players only to endorse certain products, brands ofproducts, types of products, or the like, that are also endorsed by theNFL, or may only allow use of video or audio related to NFL games orplayers only in certain circumstances, with certain brands, in certainadvertisements, or in certain product offerings.

More specifically, as used herein, relationships, endorsements,sponsorships, or affiliations may include: endorsements or sponsorships,in which an individual or a brand may be used to market another productor service to improve the marketability of that other product orservice; marketing partnerships, in which short term relationshipsbetween different products or services are employed to improve themarketing of each respective product or service; brand affinity, whichis built around a long term relationship between different products orservices such that, over time, consumers come to accept an affinity ofone brand based on its typical placement with another brand in anotherindustry; creative asset relationships, in which two or more creativeassets are, at some point between inception and delivery, combined togenerate a creative that is saleable, marketable, or an advertisement;and the like.

At present, there is a need for a platform or engine to allow for thecomposition of a creative employing one or more assets in any of theabove circumstances, wherein the asset(s) relate to, for example, aspecific individual, a specific entity, an affinity brand, a marketingpartner, a sponsor, a well known media asset, such as a movie ortelevision show, or the like. In the present invention, a creativeengine 10, such as that illustrated in FIG. 1, may include a vault 12that provides media assets 14 and integration of media assets, in one ormore instances without need of involving the media assets forpermission, a recommendation engine 20 that may, by creative, by market,by brand affinity, by user request, or otherwise match media assets fromthe vault with a request for a creative 22, and a delivery engine 26capable of integrating the requested creative 22 and the one or moremedia asset 14 from the vault 12. The delivery engine may, for example,be apart from the vault and recommendation engine, either in control, insoftware, in location, and the like, and may allow for pre-binding,binding at request, or late stage binding of the creative 22 and mediaasset 16, and delivery of the creative 22 bound with the dynamic mediaasset 16 from the vault to an advertiser, an advertising server, anentertainment customer/purchaser, or the like. As such, the deliveryengine may generate the mash up of the creative and the media asset(s),or may receive the mash up for delivery. Creative requests 22 may bemade via an “wizard” using templates, as will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art.

The vault captures certain media assets, and/or information relatedthereto, in a common location, such as a common database, such as, forexample, all major league baseball past and present players, includingstatistics, video, and pictures of those players affiliated with thenames of those players, in addition to any endorsement limitations onthose players. The vault may likewise include media assets that may beassociated with audio-visual works. The vault may include video, audio,photographs, text and text/SMS messages, symbols, emblems, taglines,pictures, video, press releases, publications, web links, web links toexternal content, and media capable of re-purposing (such as an athleterunning in front of a blue screen, wherein the athlete may bere-purposed by the placement of a background over the blue screen), andvoice.

At least one of the vault and the recommendation engine may also includeone or more rules associated with each of the media assets, such asexclusions, inclusions, or preferences 50 for the use of the media assetor particular items of information associated with the media asset inthe vault. Such inclusions, exclusions, or preferences may includegeographic limitations on certain information items or endorsements,product limitations, preferred partners or products or product types forendorsement, preferred or allowed uses, etc. Exclusions may, of course,be necessary if the requested creative conflicts with other legalities,such as a pre-existing endorsement agreement for the requested brandwith a competitor, or the like.

Further, media assets in the vault may be marked with different paymentschema 52 based on the requester of the media asset, the request itself,the creative into which the requested asset will be incorporated, therequested overall creative including the asset, or the ultimate use ormarket for the creative created, for example. For example, in the eventthe creative requester is a school, or a student at a school, and therequested creative is not an advertisement or like endeavor to sellanything, media assets may be made available for use for free. Suchexceptions may be made, with regard to payment, with regard to any levelof payment variation as between any number of different user and/or usetypes, such as non-profit, for-profit, individual, corporate, in-home,in-business, advertisement, entertainment, and the like. Additionally,for example, icons of a favorite football player may be requested by anon-profit individual for at-home use, to be overlayed over a livefootball program then on that individual's television, at no charge, orminimal charge to that individual. Likewise, assets may be provided toallow a user to create a widget, or like entertainment item, wherein theuser, or a user avatar, is placed into a well-known audio or videoenvironment, or wherein the user, or the user avatar, is placed into avideo game, or classic video game, for example, and such situations mayallow for a variable charge to be levied on the user based on the mediaasset requested by the user, the use of the ultimate creative includingthe requested media asset, the identity of the requesting party, or thelike.

The recommendation engine 20 may assess, based on numerous factorsincluding external factors, the media assets that are most sensible, orthat are available, for a particular requested creative. For example,such a recommendation engine may gauge proper matches by assessinginclusion and exclusion rules based on the aforementioned factors in thevault, such as geography, but additionally can use stored or externalinformation and/or variable factoring to do associations for any twomedia assets, such as association between two different brands (such aswherein brand associations already exhibiting brand affinity would havethe highest percentage association, and brands which would make the mostsensible association would also exhibit higher percentage matching forbrand association), or to do matching of a media asset based on thetarget consumers or creative requester of the requested creative.

For example, a “profile” 60 may be developed in the vault for aparticular asset. Such a profile may include any of a myriad ofinformation, both stored in the vault and/or having external referencesoutside the vault from within the vault. For example, in the event therequested creative is an advertisement, the profile may include but notlimited to psychological profiles of typical users of a brand that isthe profiled asset (which may include values, motivations, wants, andneeds of brand users, and which may be assessed based on inferences fromon-line, credit card, or television use by those users, for example),brand profiles of that asset including target customers, targetaffiliate profiles (which may include reasons for desired affiliation,such as sharing marketing costs, increasing brand recognition in certaingeographies or fields of use, distribution channel access, expeditedmarket entry, or improved brand perception, for example), and the like,and such profiles may be used as media assets by the recommendationengine in order to develop a best match.

As an additional example with regard to advertising, polling may providefor local or national focus and be maintained in the vault as anassociated media asset with a particular brand, and best matches forcertain brands may be selected according to such polling results. Forexample, a “flashy” sports personality may be a best match for a brandoffering in Los Angeles, but a different athlete's endorsement might bepreferably to sell that brand in the mid-west. Such information,including “who's hot”, or where a brand is “hot”, may be associated withthe media assets regarding that brand in the vault, and may be thus usedby the recommendation engine to do matching.

Similarly with regard to non-advertising embodiments, the vault of thepresent invention may include assets uniquely associated with particularusers/consumers. For example, a user may enter an avatar to the vault asa media asset to be associated with, and/or form part of, the user'sprofile. Additionally, the user need not incorporate an externallycreated avatar in the instant invention, but rather may create an avatarusing the present invention as a media asset for inclusion in the vault.Similarly, the user may use tools provided in the present invention tocreate or upload a variety of media assets, such as widgets, personalaudio, photos, text messages, and/or videos, to the vault in the presentinvention for use as media assets in generating a creative in union withother vault assets. Needless to say, such “personal” vault assets mayhave access limited by the uploading or creating user, wherein suchaccess may be limited to the creator, or to a circle or parties orentities authorized by the creator, or to all individual users of thevault, or to all corporate users of the vault, or to all non-profitusers of the vault, etc.

Thus, in the aforementioned exemplary embodiment, the present inventionmay allow for the creation of avatars. Such avatars may be used withother media assets within, or accessible to, the vault, as creatives, ormay constitute purchaseable creatives in their own right, for example.For example, a user of the system may create an avatar for him/herself,and/or may create an avatar incorporating or based on a brand orpersonality. In the latter exemplary embodiment, for example, thesubject brand or personality may allow to be resident in the vault aseries of authorized media assets that may be used by users to generatecreatives constituting, at least in part, the aforementioned avatar(s)The avatars may thus be used, such as in conjunction with other assetsor associative asset information in the vault, in the furtherance ofbrand recognition for the creation of brand affinity with the subjectbrand or personality. Needless to say, a user may request a creativethat is a composition including multiple assets in the form of avatars,or like assets, such as wherein the user's avatar is shown in anentertaining video meeting up with, and marrying, an avatar of BradPitt, for example.

Although an avatar may be generated using software in various ways, aswill be understood by those skilled in the art, in one such methodologythe user may upload one or more images into the vault as an asset(s) foruse/manipulation, such as use/manipulation in generating a creative forpurchase in the form of an avatar. The images may be uploaded from anexisting photograph, for example, or may be imported from a camera or avideo camera attached to, or accessible via, a user interface, orthrough other electronic media. Once such images are uploaded, the usermay for example, crop portions of the photographs to be used as tocreate the avatar. The avatar portion may include, for example, aparticular portion of a face within the uploaded images and/or the bodyand face from the uploaded images. The images may also be cropped tocapture only those portions relevant to the avatar of interest in therequested creative. Once the cropped portions of the uploaded images areselected, an avatar creation engine may process the images and create anavatar based on the selected portion of the uploaded image.

For example, the present invention may, via software, use the multipleavailable cropped images to generate a three-dimensional estimate ofcertain points of interest on the cropped images to allow forpreparation of the avatar. Such points of interest may include, forexample, certain facial contours, wherein such points of interest may becalculated relative to other points of interests, such as other facialfeature. Needless to say, the availability of multiple images, likely atleast slightly different angles, improves the availability of relativecalculations of facial or other relative points of interest, althoughthe present invention may be similarly employed with the uploading ofonly a single image.

In an exemplary embodiment, the most prominent point, such as the tip ofthe nose, may be selected, and the position of the tip of the noseversus some predetermined number of other points of interest, such asfive other points of interest, may then be assessed, such as by using amathematical relation between the points of interest assessed as amongthe multiple uploaded, cropped images. Thereby, in this exemplaryembodiment, the mathematical relation between multiple points ofinterest allows for the generation of a three-dimensional avatar modelin accordance with the proportions of the user's real physical facialfeatures. Needless to say, certain facial features may be added ormodified, either upon generation of such an avatar or thereafter. Forexample, upon review of a generated avatar, a user may decide that shewishes her eyes to be wider, or may select a blue color for her eyes.The avatar so generated may then be animated in any way desired by thecomposer, including for use in requested creatives with other availableor allowable media assets in the vault, such as well known movie scenes,television shows, video games, music videos, virtual worlds, or stillphotos, for example.

By way of further example, if the uploaded portion includes only theface of the target avatar, the software of the present invention mayfurther allow the user to add various aspects of the avatar body, faceand/or accessories, including but not limited to hair, hats, tee shirts,pants, shoes, and the like. More specifically, the avatar produced maybe created in at least two forms, such as the general facial area of theuser, and/or the face and a body portion. As discussed hereinabove, anavatar may also be imported into the present invention from a thirdparty source, wherein such avatar may already be developed. By way ofexample, the person who has created an avatar in an existing socialnetwork to represent herself may import that avatar into the vault ofthe present invention.

An avatar imported or otherwise created in the vault may be furthermanipulated and/or otherwise be incorporated with other media assetsfrom the vault, as discussed herein throughout. Such manipulations mayinclude, for example, changing the color, size and shape of aspects ofthe avatar or, for example, creating a sketch look, hazed look, ablocked face look, or the like for the avatar. Of course, somevariations, modifications, or incorporations may be precluded or notcompatible in accordance with the aforementioned rule set governing theuse of media assets.

As discussed hereinabove, the present invention may include one or morevaults which may contain various creatives and/or media assets, whetheror not generated by the present invention or downloaded or otherwiseobtained from external locations or from third parties. Such media mayinclude for example, movies, television shows or famous sporting events,by way of non-limiting example. As mentioned hereinabove, the presentinvention may allow for the interaction between such vaulted mediaassets and at least one avatar in a requested creative. Morespecifically, such interaction, for example, may include thesuper-imposing of the avatar into a particular piece of vaulted mediaasset. By way of example, an avatar created in accordance with thepresent invention may be uploaded into an episode of “Friends”. In thiscase, for example, the avatar may be super-imposed within the televisionshow as an inert object, have interaction with the scene, or interactdirectly with the characters of the show.

By way of further non-limiting example, an avatar consisting of justfacial features may be super-imposed on a media asset available withinthe vault. More specifically, for example, the vault media may contain aStill photo or video of Tug McGraw during the 1980 baseball World Seriesthrowing the last pitch to win the only World Series in the history ofthe Philadelphia Phillies. The user may then insert his or her facialavatar onto the body of Tug McGraw in the photo or video, therebycreating a new video showing the avatar winning the 1980 World Series.Of course, such a requested creative might make for a good gift, such asafter incorporation of such an avatar into the 1980 World Series,wherein the avatar corresponds to a son or daughter, for delivery as anonline “birthday card” or birthday email to that son or daughter.

The vault may also contain media specifically designed for use withavatars, whether created or imported by the user. Such media mayinclude, for example, generic video of reality upon which an avatar maybe inserted or, by way of further example, a cartoon depiction of lifeevents. Although innumerable examples exist, the present inventionallows for the interaction of avatars with such media assets, whether ornot the media assets and/or the avatars originate at the vault of thepresent invention.

In yet further exemplary embodiments, avatars and avatar interactivemedia may be saved by the user to the vault, uploaded or downloadedlocally, or accessed through or as part of a widget, among myriad otherexamples. Such a widget may take the form of an access key which, for afee, would allow for the display or downloading of the avatar or avatarinteractive media as a creative to a desktop, for example. For example,an episode of “Friends” that includes an avatar as one of the charactersin a coffee shop may be shown on the webpage of the user who is thesubject of the avatar on the social network page of that user throughthe use of a widget. Access in this fashion may be charged as a one timefee, or may be time based, or per diem or periodically based, forexample. Such a creative may also be accessed, for example, by mailorder DVD or on-demand cable services, among many other accessmethodologies, for example.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard for telephone messagingsystems that allows sending messages that include multimedia objects(images, audio, video, rich text), as well as text, such as in ShortMessage Service (SMS). MMS and SMS are used herein to refer to allsimilar text, data and multimedia systems known to those skilled in theart. MMS is typically deployed in cellular networks, along with othermessaging systems like SMS, Mobile Instant Messaging and Mobile E-mail.The principal standardization effort for MMS is done by 3GPP, 3GPP2 andOpen Mobile Alliance (OMA).

Text messaging, such as MMS/SMS, is used by people to send shortmessages usually from person-to-person. Picture messaging has becomemore and more popular now that cell phones often have built in orattachable cameras to enable people to send picture messaging back andforth. Picture messaging is made possible through the MMS system via itssupport of all kinds of photos, graphics, animation, as well as videoand audio clips. Thus, in the exemplary embodiments herein, MMS and likesystems allow the sending and receiving of any type of multimediamessages. Further, such systems have been designed to work with mobilepacket data services such as GPRS and 1×/EVDO.

MMS-enabled mobile phones may thus enable subscribers to compose andsend messages with one or more multimedia parts. Multimedia parts mayinclude text, images, audio and video. These content types shouldconform to the MMS or similar Standards. For example, a phone can sendan MPEG4 video in AVI format. Mobile phones with multimediacapabilities, such as with built-in MP3 players, are very likely toinclude an MMS messaging client—a software program that interacts withthe Mobile subscriber to compose, address, send, receive, and view MMSmessages. MMS and/or an MMS client may thus be used by various companiesto suit different solutions. For example, using a Mobile Photo SharingPlatform called Mobshare, sports photos are broadcasted to thousands offans directly on their mobile phones.

MMS and like or associated types of consumer messaging may be providedthrough the system of the present invention. For example, voice profilesmay be included with the vaulted assets of the present invention, suchas to provide a celebrity wishing a happy birthday to a friend. Thecelebrities' voices may be modified to pronounce almost anything basedon the base voice profile, such as the name of the person to whom theaforementioned birthday wish is sent, as will be understood by thoseskilled in the art. Such a modification may also be performed usingnames selectable from a list, such as numerous available namespreviously pronounced by the celebrity and made available via a dropdown menu or search, for example. As would be understood to thosepossessing an ordinary skill in the pertinent arts, other greetings mayalso be sent, such as teasing or bad wishes, for example. Limitationsmay be included within the system to prevent the use of explicit wishes,either favorable or unfavorable, and may also be used to limit the useof certain celebrities with certain wishes via the aforementioned vaultrules, for example. Such disassociation of celebrities withwishes/causes/holidays may be provided to prevent abuse of any consumermessaging, to prevent the injury to the celebrity persona and name,and/or to prevent support of causes or brands contrary to thosegenerally supported by that celebrity. Needless to say, this exemplaryembodiment is readily modifiable to likewise employ celebrity or famousvideo, avatars or pictures, for example.

As contemplated herein, voice profiles, and all voice or audio assetsassociated with a celebrity or other individual or character, may begenerated by direct recording of entire messages, portions of messages,or may be constructed via a voice snippet database, or may further besynthesized voice data.

For example, in the creation of a voice snippet portfolio, a textselection system as understood by those skilled in the art may analyzetext from a variety of sources and assemble an optimal text set that maythen be read by the celebrity. The text selection system may furtherincorporate existing assets to more efficiently determine what textualmaterial has already been recorded, and thereby eliminate redundant,unwanted or undesired voice snippet data by not pursuing such data. Thecelebrity's speech may then be labeled according to the text to be readand the individual voice assets may then be extracted from the recordedspeech for use in constructing a recorded snippet asset database. Theseassets may further be associated with text-to-speech synthesizers, asdescribed herein.

The text selection system may analyze any source of text that isreadable or transmittable by computer over a network. Thus, thenetworked system as contemplated herein may be used to identify anddownload text from any source within the vault or externally, includingelectronic dictionaries, digitized works of literature, technicalreports and the like.

Text may be run through a text parser or similar program that breaks thetext into individual syllables, words and/or phrases. The text parsermay further examine any whitespace between words and the punctuation toidentify individual words and phrases within input text. As may beunderstood by those skilled in the art, the text parser may furtherinclude a set of grammatical rules to identify phrases based on parts ofspeech.

After all parsing is completed, the text may be run through a wordanalysis program that may employ a lexicon, word decompositionalgorithm, or the like, to break up all words and phrases into theirconstituent phonemes. For example, the word decomposition algorithm mayexamine individual letters in each word and phrase to identify vowelsand consonants. Likewise, the word analysis program may consider notonly a single letter but also its neighboring letters to determine whatthe correct phoneme assignment should be. Because there may be variationin the pronunciation of words based on the location of those words in asentence, the system may selectively exclude those words from being usedto develop an optimal text set. For example, flags associated withcertain words and phrases may be inserted into the resulting analysisbased on the context of where that word or phrase appears in the anysentence, such that flagged voice data may be excluded, oralternatively, used for special purposes.

Once the phonemes have been extracted from the words and phrases, theymay be sent to a sound analysis program to identify the constituentsound units found within the generated phonemes. The sound analysisprogram may use phoneme information to identify all individual soundunits. If a synthesizer is to be used, the ultimate constitution of thesound units may depend on the nature of the synthesizer. For example,the synthesizer may use syllables, demi-syllables, pairs of halfsyllables, or the like. Otherwise, the sound analysis program may takethe phonemes and identify how they may be grouped into the sound unitsof choice. In doing so, the sound analysis program may further keeptrack of the context of the sound units. That is, the sound analysisprogram may identify not only the sound unit, but also its neighboringsound units. As explained above, this may allow the system to flag textwhere particular sound units may vary by the pronunciation effects oftheir neighboring sound units. Thus, all sound units associated with acelebrity profile may be stored in the vault so that a record ofphonetically important neighboring sound units is maintained.

The sound analysis program may further incorporate a set of exclusionrules whereby certain sound units are excluded from contributing to thefinal text database. The exclusion rules may rely on the flaggingfunction as described above, and thus may avoid words or phrases thatlie at certain locations within the sentence. Exclusion rules may alsoreject accented syllables, as such syllables tend to provide lowerquality sound units for use with text-to-speech synthesizers.

In addition to generating text for celebrities to read aloud, thepresent invention may also be used to process prerecorded voice datathat is accompanied by a corresponding text. For example, a preparedspeech, or books-on-tape recordings may be used as source material ofboth the recorded speech information and the corresponding textassociated with that speech. As contemplated herein, the best or mostreliable examples of this recorded speech may be used, and gaps or holesin the voice asset portfolio may be identified and filled as describedherein. Upon finalized creation of all textual information, recordingsof all such text may be made as is understood by those skilled in theart, and those digitized or recorded voice assets may be stored in thevault for any such use as contemplated herein. Preferably, these createdaudio assets are pooled with or otherwise associated with related assetsfor that celebrity, such that the recommendation engine described hereinmay efficiently select those assets required in the generation of anyparticular requested creative.

In another embodiment, synthesizers may be used to generate voicesnippet data for a celebrity voice asset portfolio. Synthesis may bebased on the stringing together of segments of recorded speech, toproduce natural-sounding voice data. For example, unit selectionsynthesis may use those voice assets associated with a celebrity voiceportfolio, such that the desired target utterance is created bydetermining the best chain of candidate assets (such as phrases, words,syllables or phonemes) from the portfolio. Such a process is typicallyachieved via use of a weighted decision tree mechanism, as may beunderstood by those skilled in the art. Any text selected for acelebrity to read may be used with a synthesizer to adapt to the voicequality and characteristic particular to that celebrity. Likewise, andwithout limitation, the present invention may utilize any voice assetcreated and stored by the present invention, and may utilize such voiceassets in any synthesis process, such as diphone synthesis,domain-specific synthesis, formant or rules based synthesis,articulatory synthesis, hidden Markov model synthesis and sinewavesynthesis, for example, as may be understood by those skilled in theart.

As contemplated herein, voice data, incorporating full or partial lengthrecordings, voice snippets and/or synthesized voice data, may beduplicated and digitized by system processors and may be placed intopackets for transmission over the network, and likewise stored asaccessible assets in the vault. The assets may then be available forplayback via devices as described herein.

Further, simplistically, voice data in the vault for a given celebritymay include a full script, read by a celebrity, such as outrightendorsing a certain product, or such as endorsing a type of product butnot a specific brand. In the latter instance, the voice script may thenbe used in conjunction with a separate reference to a certain brand, orin conjunction with a synthesized vocalization of the specific brand asdiscussed hereinabove.

Referring now to FIG. 2, there is shown a consumer messaging systemaccording to an aspect of the present invention. As may be seen in FIG.2, there is a first device, a second device, and the recommendationengine, vault, content and delivery discussed herein throughout. Whilethe discussion herein will focus on an example wherein the consumermessaging occurs from one-to-one, separate examples of one-to-many mayalso be included. As shown in FIG. 2, the first device, such as acellular phone, pager, personal computing device, or the like, isdirected to send a consumer message to a second device, such as acellular phone, pager, personal computing device, or the like. In thisscenario, the user of the first device may want to deliver to the userof the second device a happy birthday message from Madonna, for example.According to an aspect of the present invention, the first devicecouples to the recommendation engine with a request for a happy birthdaymessage from Madonna. The recommendation engine, as described hereinthroughout, interacts with the vault and content to recommend a happybirthday message that meets the desired criteria. This message mayinclude Madonna's voice modified to say the second user's name to beincluded within the birthday wish. Once recommended and selected, thebirthday wish may be delivered to the second device using the consumermessaging and/or network of or associated with the present invention.The system of the present invention may employ pre-binding, late bindingand sponsoring page/content dynamically delivered in delivery/creatingthe happy birthday wish.

In light of these examples relating to FIG. 2, such embodiments of thepresent invention effectively provide a centralized on-demand recordingand playback mechanism that may be incorporated into or run seamlesslywith the recommendation engine and its respective hardware and network.In this way, the on-demand recording and playback mechanism may alsoutilize all features of the aforementioned system described hereinthroughout, including use of a MMS or otherwise in conjunction with anypublic switched telephone network and private branch exchange. In otherembodiments, the recording mechanism may operate via the communicationdevice, such as a mobile phone or a VoIP enabled phone. In theseembodiments, the recorded and digitized asset may simply be transmittedto system servers for further processing and storage in the vault. Forexample, a VoIP recording phone may perform an on-demand recordingfunction to process and send all voice data to the system serverswithout going through a centrally located exchange device. The recordingphone may also obtain call control information without involving acentrally located exchange device.

As shown in FIG. 3, the present invention also includes a method 300 ofcreating and delivering an on-demand audio asset for inclusion into acreative. For example, method 300 beginning at step 310, which involvesaccessing a central processing environment (e.g. a server or set ofservers,) from a first communication device (e.g. a cell phone, pda,laptop, etc.) through a computerized telecommunications network. Next,at step 320, a request is made for a recording of at least a portion ofthe audio transmission generated from the first communication device.Next, at step 330, at least one audio asset is generated from therecording of the audio transmission. At step 340, the audio asset isadded to a pool of assets stored in the vault, which is connected to thecentral processing environment via the telecommunications network.Related assets may be, for example, additional audio assets from thesame celebrity. At step 350, the generated audio asset and at least oneother related asset from the pool of related assets is selected forinclusion into a creative. Next, at step 360, a request is made todeliver the creative to a second communication device. The secondcommunication device may alternatively be the same as the firstcommunication device, but naturally this must be subsequent to theearlier steps of method 300, and therefore must be a different point intime from which the first communication device is being used in a priorstep of method 300. Lastly, at step 370, the creative is delivered tothe second communication device via the telecommunications network.

In one exemplary embodiment, and in light of FIG. 3, a voice recordingmay be performed as follows. After a voice session is established, theuser may request that a recording begin. Initiation of the recordingfunction may occur at any time during the voice session, such that theentire session may be recorded, or only portions of the session may berecorded. Recording sessions may also be intermittent, such thatrecording may occur multiple times during a single voice session.Initiation of recording may be made by the originator of the voicesession, by another party to the voice session or by another partyhaving access to the voice session data, or by a computing terminal alsohaving access to the voice session data. Voice data may be packetized bythe phone and sent to system servers to tentatively hold the storedinformation. Other forms of data transfer arc also contemplated herein,such as all those that are commonly used by those skilled in the art,such as frames, raw data, or tokens, for example. At any time during thevoice session and up until the session is terminated, the user of thephone may request that the recorded information of the voice session besaved for later use by the system, by initiating a save request. Toinitiate the save request, the user may only need to push apredetermined button on the phone, provide a voice command to save, orutilize other user interfaces to send the save request. Alternatively, asecond party, who may also be actively on the voice session, or isotherwise provided access to the voice session data, may initiate thesave request. Since packets are used as a transport means forinformation exchange, it should be understood by those skilled in theart that all other suitably enabled phones may send a signal to requesta conversation session to be saved. It should also be understood thatthe user of the recording system may be a computer terminal that cancommunicate with the original phone of the voice session that is beingrecorded. Upon receiving the instruction, the server may store all orany portion of the held voice data in the vault for future retrieval andtransmission, and for inclusion into a requested creative, and describedabove. If a save request is never initiated before the end of the voicesession, the voice data tentatively stored by the server may be deletedwhen the voice session ends. Alternatively, the system may initiate amessage to the original phone user or any other interested party toconfirm that a save request was not made, and provide any number ofadditional opportunities for subsequent saving. In this manner,regardless of when the save request is initiated, the entirecommunication of the voice session is available for playback. In furtherembodiments, two or more people may record peer-to-peer conversationwith or without involving a centrally located exchange. The presentinvention as described above thus provides an improved method forallowing all or portions of a voice session, and other streams of analogor digital data to be recorded when a triggering event to record thedata is initiated during the transmission.

Effectively, the aforementioned method 300 is performed by a creativecomposition engine, which forms part of the engine as shown in FIG. 1and described herein. The engine may thus include a central processingenvironment that includes at least one processor, a digital recorder anda digital asset storage vault, wherein the digital recorder records atleast a portion of an audio transmission from a first electricalcommunication device connected to the central processing environment viaa computerized telecommunications network, for inclusion into a pool ofrelated audio assets stored in the vault, and wherein the centralprocessing environment generates a creative comprising the at least onerecording and at least one other related asset from the pool fordelivery to a second electrical communication device.

In an embodiment of the present invention, an advertiser may accessexisting voiceovers contained within the vault. Access may be controlledby the system administrator and may be based on through user definedattributes or characteristics attributable to, for example, thecelebrity completing the voiceover. The interface may take the form of aplug-and-play interface and may allow for a control panel that mayfacilitate access and control functions to at least a group ofvoiceovers. Such controls may include editing, deletion and copyfunctionality. The accessible voiceovers may be limited by talent,subject or other vault-tracked parameters, such as, for example, pastDMA coverage by a particular voiceover. Other characteristics mayinclude, but are not limited to, for example, the length and languagecontent of the voiceover, and intended usage.

Controls may also allow the advertiser to place a request for a specifictalent to perform the voiceover. Alternatively, the advertiser mayselect certain criteria which may provide a basis for providing, such asback to the advertiser, a selection of talent which may be suitable forthe voiceover. The advertiser may select any and all of the talentcriteria contained by the vault and may be presented with talent thatmay, for example, best fit the selected criteria. In addition, whetheror not the vault contains talent suitable for presentation to theadvertiser in response to the criteria selected, the system may alsooffer out to talent not otherwise associated with the system to inquireabout possible participation with the solicited voiceover work. In anycase, the advertiser may be kept informed of the progress of the requestfor talent and/or voiceover through the ultimate recording and/ordelivery of the voiceover. Of course, consistent with aspects of thepresent invention, multiple parties may have approval capabilitiesduring the voiceover creation process and may affect the process throughdenial and/or change requests regarding a particular voiceover. In thisregard, the system may provide for various levels of users with varyingdegrees of access. Restriction may run the gamut from control overlicensed content to administrative control to access to the talent usingthe system, for example.

In an embodiment of the present invention, and correspondent to theapproval process of the present invention, voiceovers may be subject toseveral versions, whether or not created from a direct request orprovided in advance through the vault. Furthermore, pre-recordedvoiceovers provided through the system may also be associated withpre-approvals from the necessary entities, such as, for example, thetalent the produced the advertisement. Multiple versions of voiceovers,whether availed of a pre-approval or not, may also be mixed by anadvertiser to conform to a desired product. This may allow theadvertiser, for example, to edit the length of a pre-approved voiceoverto conform to the needs of the advertiser without having to obtainadditional talent approvals. The editing process may also be subject toparameters imposed by the talent behind the voiceover. For example, theediting of a voiceover may be limited by which segments may be deletedor moved. By providing a variety of system constraints, the presentinvention may allow a talent to exert virtual control of the productbearing that talent's voice without the need to impose an approvalprocess for each edit of any one of a pre-approved voiceover. Of course,as one skilled in the art would recognize, a pre-approved voiceover maynot be limited to those stored in the vault, but may also include, forexample, those voiceovers created after a specific advertiser request.

As discussed in part above, a talent for whom a voiceover has beenrequested, may receive at least one notification of at least one newvoiceover request. The talent may review the request for script content,run time, DMA coverage, and other known advertisement attributes, andmay approve, reject or offer modifications to the requested voiceover.This process may be accessed by the talent, or a representative thereof,through the system interface and may present the talent with a list ofall voiceovers requested of the talent and may be sorted with newrequests at the top. Further, the advertiser may select the desiredvoiceover and may launch the voiceover details pop-over. The pop-overmay provide the talent with the means to review the voiceoverinformation, record voiceover takes, upload audio files for use asvoiceover takes, and to text-chat with a system representative. Once atalent records or uploads at least the predetermined number of voiceovertakes, the talent may be able to submit the completed voiceover forapproval, which may be delivered to the advertiser.

Although not explicitly stated before, these and other steps taken byand between the users of the system may be moderated or otherwisecontrolled and/or facilitated by system representatives. These systemrepresentatives may also communicate with any user of the system toprovide system help, creative guidance, and demographic information, forexample. Although the system may automatically collect approvals onscripts, final takes, and may manage communication between advertisersand talent, the system representative may fill this and any other systemrole, whether automated or not, to provide additional support to thesystem and/or to problem solve issues that may arise related to either auser and/or the system.

The system may also provide a “plug-in” module capable of fulfilling anynumber of system functions, and may further provide system functiontailored for a specific use and/or user. For example, a customized“plug-in” may allow access to a license group belonging to a particularadvertiser and then navigate from the license group to the licensedtalent, including all the associated metadata. Another “plug-in” mayconsist of administration features which may allow for systempreferences, such as altering a user's status and various parameters andcharacteristics within the system. The administrative feature may alsoallow for the control of system and user communications, such as a chatbetween a talent and a requester.

As described above and as illustrated in FIG. 4, the system may allowfor the screening of requested voiceovers by a system representative, orCSR, and the talent. A CSR may cancel requests which, for example, areincomplete or are inappropriate for further action, such as requestscontaining offensive material. A talent may also review the requestedvoiceover and accept or reject it based on even more refined analysis,such as consideration for subject matter, exposure, compensation and admetrics and attributes, for example. The information reviewed may hesubmitted in accordance with the steps illustrated by FIG. 5, wherein arequester may provide the mechanical aspects of the voiceover and thetalent, or a representative thereof, may download the information andmay be queued for action by the talent.

With or without system representative involved, as illustrated in FIG.6, a talent may record at least one voiceover in accordance with thescript and/or subject matter provided and may further approve thevarious “takes” for further reviewing and approvals. Although a minimumof one captured “take” may be sufficient, in an embodiment of thepresent invention, a talent may record, for example, five “takes” toensure that a sufficient product is delivered. Although the systemallows for the rejection and request for the talent to re-record avoiceover, a greater number of “takes” may limit this exercise. A talentmay also look to record versions of the voiceover utilizing, forexample, different voice tones, inflections and cadences. Suchcharacteristics may also be cause for a “re-take” even though thesubstance of the original voiceover may be sufficient. As discussedhereinabove, a system representative may facilitate certain functionssuch providing guidance with system navigation. As illustrated in FIG.7, this guidance may take the form of a “chat” between the systemrepresentative and a user of the system. As one skilled in the art willappreciate, any number of communication techniques, including text andvideo, may be utilized.

An embodiment of the present invention, as illustrated in FIG. 8, mayprovide an interface for the utilization of system functions. Assuming auser has successfully logged in, options for creating a new request,opening and editing a previously created and/or submitted request, or adeletion of a request may be presented. Deletion of a request may beperformed if, for example, it is determined that the requested talentdoes not have interest in performing the voice over, or the voiceover iscompleted and has been used and/or is expired. A voiceover may also bediscontinued for any reason, including the desire to suspend theadvertising campaign, for example. The system may display relevantinformation such as the title of the voiceover, the status of thevoiceover, the talent involved, the requested completion date, theapproval or denial date, and the type of voiceover. Plug-ins may belaunched, as well as having access to system help.

If a user would like to create a new voiceover, an interface illustratedin FIGS. 9a -9f may be presented. The user may have the ability toprovide general information about the voiceover, such as, for example,the name of the voiceover, the assigned licensing group (if any), thedesired talent (if a specific one is desired) and the desired completiondate. Information about the script may be provided, including the actualscript and desired time duration. The user may also provide visualclues, such as bolding and underlining, for example, to emphasisparticular aspects of the script. The system may auto-populate variousmetrics, such as word count and approximate words per second necessaryto complete the script in the desired time. The interface may also allowthe user to request pre-approval by the system representative and/or thedesired talent prior to saving and posting the voiceover request.

As illustrated in FIG. 10a , the talent may record into the system arequested voiceover and may review any “take” before saving it to thesystem. To assist the talent in recording the voiceover, the system mayprovide a timer or countdown clock, as illustrated in FIG. 10b . Asmentioned above, the talent may review, edit and delete any voiceoverprior to download by the requester for use.

Further, the present invention may also be used to deliver picturesand/or movies, for example, as referenced hereinabove. In such aconfiguration, the present system may be able to send a message to a upand coming baseball player by integrating that up and coming baseballplayer into his favorite movie, Field of Dreams. Using this technique, apicture or multiple pictures of the up and coming baseball player may beadded into the motion picture Field of Dreams and then delivered to thedevice of the up and coming baseball player.

As illustrated in FIG. 11, and as otherwise described above, thecreation of users and licensing approvals, the contacting of talent, theapproval of an advertising script and the recording of the advertisementmay be completed may be completed within the system, including withinthe use of the plug-and-play interface. The present invention may alsoallow for the final editing or mixing of a recorded advertisement. Thisfinal creative mixing/editing may be done by a user of the system or bya third party, such as a studio specializing in the editing ofaudio/visual advertisements. Furthermore, the actual editing may be donewithin the system using the tools provided therein or removed by a thirdparty to be edited and/or mixed before being replaced within the systemfor final approval and ultimate distribution. If, however, the ad hasthe otherwise final approval of the talent, the recorded advertisementmay be removed for editing and/or mixing purposes and not otherwisereturned to the system prior to distribution. This functionality mayallow for greater flexibility by the users of the system and may allowfor the exploitation of media channels, outlets and forms not otherwiseavailable through the system and/or the users of the system.

For example, an advertisement for a common sundry product sold in theUnited States may be desired for use in a foreign market. Theadvertisement may have final approval of the talent and may be onlyfurther edited and/or mixed to include local details about the product'savailability, for example. Although the talent may be notified that theadvertisement will be used in a foreign jurisdiction, the limited amountof editing and/or mixing may not be of sufficient concern for the talentand thus may not require further approvals. To facilitate such anexample, the system may allow the users of the system to include withthe advertisement attributes which may allow for approval of certainactivities post-approval, such as, for example, editing and/or mixingand distribution. Providing advanced approval for the use of anadvertisement may increase the value and flexibility of the recordedadvertisement.

The various activities discussed above for creating, editing, reviewing,and approving assets and creatives (media which may include both talentand at least one asset, for example) may all depend, in part, on accessto the system. However, full system access may not be desired. Forexample, a user may not have appropriate electronic or internet access.Similarly, a user may not want related users to have certain accessprivileges. Further complicating matters may be the desire to alter andvary the access level provided to a user of the system. Further still, auser may want to allow access to the system to a non-user or anon-regular user of the system. Each of these issues may be handled byusing access weighted URLs (hereinafter AWUs).

AWUs may generally consist of a URL link which has been assigned acertain degree of system access and direction by a user of the system.These URLs may allow for a certain degree of system access within thesystem bounds already accessible by the AWU creator, for example, or mayallow for access to a specific resource within the system and for whichaccess could be granted by the user. Such access may be limited tosimply viewing, inputting or certain information, and/or editing,including the ability to delete and add content and/or information.Again, as with the breath of access to the system overall, the accessand rights granted by a user of the system may not extend beyond thepermissions already held. Although as may be appreciated by thoseskilled in the art, users of the system may have the ability to grantpermissions granted them by holders of superior permissions.

In practice, AWU may most often be used to provide information to aparty related to a user of the system. For example, an AWU may be usedto provide access to campaigns and/or creatives to which a user hasaccess. Although a user may have created and/or provided the media andinformation to be accessed, persons from whom review and or approval isneeded may not be dedicated users of the system. For these casual users,no access or user profile may have been created. Instead of exportingthe information within the system for access by such a third-party, aAWU may be created to allow such users necessary access.

For example, an owner of an apparel company may instruct a user of thesystem to create a creative for use in a campaign in furtherance of theowner's sale of goods. The user may take instruction from the owner, butthe owner may not have access to the system. The user may also be remotefrom the user and may not be able to easily share information.Furthermore, during the development of the creative and prior to its usein a campaign, the owner may need to approve the creative and be able toprovide feedback and/or edit the creative to meet his approval. The usermay grant the appropriate access to the owner by way of a AWU, allowingthe functionality necessary to gain the owner's approval.

In the prior example, it may be desirable to limit the AWU in timecorrespondent to the final approval of the owner. In many other cases,it may be such that the user wishes to limit a AWU by use(s) ortemporally. For example, a user may limit the AWU to discrete systemaccess windows, thus limiting even the same user to two uninterruptedsessions within the system. Likewise, an AWU may be limited by time,expiring or becoming otherwise inoperable after a certain period of timefrom issuance, such as three days, for example, as one skilled in theart would understand.

As illustrated in FIG. 12, the present invention may include a trafficmanager 1201 which may allow for the creation, sending and receipt ofAWUs and may do so using various defined variables. For example, trafficmanager 1201 may select a server to forward the AWU based any of avariety of load-balancing mechanism, including a round trip time (RTT),a least connections, a packet completion rate, a quality of service, forexample. The traffic manager 1201 may forward the request based on thetype and destination of the AWU. For example, a request directed moretowards one aspect of the system's database may be forwarded to apredefined database server, while an AWU directed to a simple graphicalrepresentation may be forwarded to a predefined email server.

Traffic manager 1201 may be further configured to receive a responsefrom a server, such as back-end servers 1210, and to forward theresponse to the requesting device, such as client device 1220. Trafficmanager 1201 may interact with request manager 1230 when there aremultiple requests for AWU from a plurality of users and/or a receipt ofa plurality of returns from AWU click-throughs. Request manager 1230 maybe configured to manage requests and responses to ensure that theresponses maintain the same order as the requests. Request manager 1230may maintain the same order by varying TCP window sizes associated withincoming data for each server connection, as would be understood bythose in the art.

Traffic manager 1201 may also include an SMTP handler application fortransmitting and receiving AWU embedded e-mail, an HTTP handlerapplication for receiving and handing AWU HTTP requests, and an HTTPShandler application for handling secure connections. The HTTPS handlerapplication may initiate communication with an external application in asecure fashion. Moreover, traffic manager 1201 may further includeapplications that support virtually any secure connections, includingTLS, TILS, EAP, SSL, IPSec, and the like. Similarly, traffic manager1201 may include applications that support a variety of tunnelingmechanisms, such as VPN, PPP, L2TP, for example.

For example, a widget company may want to present to its Board Directorthe latest creative and/or campaign developed around the company'sbest-selling widget. Although users of the system may include employeesof the company, the Director of the Board may not be a user or otherwisehave access. A company designated user may create a AWU through thetraffic manager 1201 and forward the created AWU to the Director viaemail, for example. The Director may then simply click the AWU and viewthe targeted content chosen by the creator of the AWU. For example, theAWU may direct the Director through a secure HTTPS connection anddeliver the Director into the portion of the system which may allow theDirector to view the completed campaign as a movie clip, for example.The AWU may also expire after the single connection by the Director,thus rendering the AWU dormant to other users.

Further, a AWU may expire based on usage. For example, a user mayprovide at least one user of an AWU with access to a plurality ofcreatives and/or campaigns and provide a certain level of access beyondsimply viewing. The AWU may only expire after parameters related to theplurality of creatives and/or campaigns are met. For example, theelimination or selection of certain plurality of creatives and/orcampaigns may trigger expiration of the AWU. By way of further example,the AWU may expire after certain edit criteria has been met, such as,for example, the editing of time and/or circulation.

In an embodiment of the present invention, an influencer may postinformation regarding a product and/or service to at least one socialnetwork. The information, which may be or include an asset as describedhereinabove, provided by the influencer may further include at least onelink which may be clicked on by a user of the social network to whichthe information is posted. This may allow a user of the social networkwho has access to the posting of information from the influencer toaccess further information and/or the actual products or services postedby the influencer.

As used herein, an influencer may be any person who posts informationabout a product or service within a social network. The relativestrength of an influencer may be determined by the number of users onthe social network that follows or has access to the information postedby the influencer. For example, an influencer of relatively small valuemay have as few as 40 people able to receive the information posted tothe influencer's social network. Conversely, an influencer of relativelystrong strength, may, for example, have access to over a 1000 otherusers on the social network to which the information is being posted.Such social networks, for example, may include Twitter® and Facebook®,as Well as such mediums as YouTube® and RSS feeds, for example.

Information that may be posted by an influencer may be contained, forexample, in an advertisement database, which may be associated with orincluded within the aforedescribed vault, associated with the presentinvention. Such a database may be populated by the sellers of certainproducts and/or services and may include information such as: detailsabout the products and/or services, an explanation from the seller aboutthe product and/or services, and at least one suggested informationsegment provided for use by the influencer. The information provided tothe system by an advertiser may be utilized and reviewed by a potentialinfluencer to confirm with that influencer that the product and/orservice is desirable to endorse.

For example, an advertiser may log onto the system of the presentinvention and provide the name of the campaign which the advertiserwishes to offer to the influencers for endorsement, along with the URLof the website which may contain more information or direct access tothe product and/or service, description of the product and service forthe benefit of the influencers, the geographical location for which theadvertiser desires the ad to be distributed over, and possiblecategories for which the product or service fits into. For example, suchcategories may include beauty, comedy, finance, mobile apps, home andgarden, gifts, small business and weddings, for example. An advertisermay also enter information regarding economics of advertising throughthe present invention, such as the maximum cost per click allowed to becharged to the advertiser and a maximum total amount of clicks ordollars that may be transacted on the placed advertisement.

By way of further example, a manufacturer, seller and/or advertiser fora small food processing device such as, for example, the Magic Bullet®,may wish to advertise utilizing the current invention. The advertiserfor the Magic Bullet® may enter a campaign name of Magic Bullet, and aURL of www.MagicBullet.com, for example. A description may be providedentailing the quality of craftsmanship and the operational features ofthe product. For example, the advertiser may describe the product as asmall personal use food processing device, as seen on TV. The advertisermay also choose the geographic area covered by potential endorsements toinclude at least the United States and Canada, for example. Theadvertiser may also associate the product with categories available inthe present invention such as, for example, electronics and gadgets;home appliances, gifts, and health.

The advertiser may also set a maximum cost-per-click that may be chargedto the advertiser by the influencer. Such a cost-per-click charge may beoffered at a minimum of $0.20 cents, for example, and have a maximumtotal cost-per-click budget of $200. Although a dollar amount may be setwithin the present invention, as would be appreciated by those skilledin the art, the $0.20 cost-per-click price divided into the budget of$200 would yield a limit of 1,000 clicks. Once an advertiser hasreviewed the information entered the entered, campaign may be activatedfor acceptance by influencers.

An advertiser may also set limits or constraints on those influencerswhich may endorse and/or otherwise post information about the productfrom the advertisement database. Such constraints may include thestrength of the potential influencer. For example, an advertiser mayrequire that a potential influencer have at least an audience on thesocial network of over 3,000 users up on that given social network.Thus, for example, an influencer having 3,001 followers on Facebook® maybe able to provide information to followers for a product or a serviceon which a 3,000 follower constraint has been placed by the advertiser,but not be able to place the same information within the sameinfluencer's Twitter® feed, if for example, the influencer's Twitter®feed only reaches about 500 people.

Similarly, an advertiser may wish to offer a higher cost-per-click valueto influencers having very large followings to endorse the advertiser'sproduct within the influencer's social network. Such an offering may bepredetermined by the advertiser and may be automated to increase by apredefined cost-per-click value depending on the strength of theinfluencer. For example, an influencer having a following of 200 on oneor a combination of social networks may be offered a cost-per-click of$0.38 while an influencer having a following of 20,000 on one or acombination of social networks may be offered a cost-per-click of $1.50.

In an embodiment of the present invention, an influencer may join andlogin to the system by providing the system with certain informationincluding access to the influencer's social networks. Along with theinformation provided by the influencer, the present invention may accessand crawl the accounts of the influencer on the provided social networksto determine the number of users on each social network by whichinformation posted by the influencer will be received. Thus, the presentinvention may assess the relative strength and/or weakness of aninfluencer not only upon registration with the system, but in real timeas the influencer gains and/or losses access or connectiveness to otherusers on the designated social networks.

The present invention may also measure the interaction rate theinfluencer has with any of the social networks designated by theinfluencer. For example, an interaction rating may be assigned to eachinfluencer reflecting the influencer's use of at least one designatedsocial network. For example, an influencer may designate a Twitter®account and have a relatively strong following on Twitter®, but may notpost to Twitter® in a regular manner. Similarly, the followers of theinfluencer themselves may not post to Twitter® with regularity. Thus,the present invention may filter designated social networks where thelevel of activity is low. Although levels of activity may be relative,such activity levels may be compared between influencers resulting in ascore of interaction that is relative as compared to at least oneinfluencer having the highest amount of interactions in a given socialnetwork.

For example, an influencer registered with the present invention mayhave a Facebook® account with over 4,000 followers, and may post to thedesignated account more than once a day. Similarly, that influencer'spostings may be commented on or otherwise interacted with by at leastone other user of the social network at least once a day. Such aninfluencer may, for example, have a very high interaction rating.Similarly, a user having the same number of friends on a designated.Facebook® account may only post once a month and may never have aposting commented on or otherwise interacted with. Such an influencermay, for example, have a very low interaction rating as compared to theaforementioned influencer. Thus, an advertiser may look at least twodifferent rating scales when providing constraints on whom mayparticipate as an influencer for the advertiser's product and/orservice.

An influencer may register with the system of the present invention andmay search available product and/or service offerings which he may wishto post on at least one designated social network. An influencer maywish to search the offered products and/or services by the maximum paperclick dollars offered (cost-per-click) and/or by subject matter and/orkeywords, for example. By the way of example, an influencer may searchfor sports related sites having a cost-per-click value of more than$0.30 per click. One such offering may, for example, be an advertisementfor a pro-football team fan website wherein information including adescription of the fan website and a link to the fan website may beavailable for the influencer to post to at least one designated socialnetwork. Such a fan website may also offer the influencer $0.32 perclick from the posting of the information. Further, although theadvertiser may have limited the availability of the posting toinfluencer's having more than a certain threshold of followers, forexample, the monies per click paid to the influencer need not come or begenerated by the users of the social network currently associated withthe influencer. For example, a person otherwise unassociated with thedesignated social network may conduct an internet search which may yielda link to at least one of the designated social network pages of theinfluencer. The otherwise unrelated searcher may click on theinformation posted by the influencer and thus be counted as a paid clickto the influencer by the advertiser.

Tracking by the present invention of click through information posted bythe influencer may be accomplished by using a unique URL identifier foreach posting of information by each unique influencer. Thus, as aninfluencer selects a product or service to endorse on a designatedsocial network, the URL and/or information provided by the presentinvention may be associated with a hidden URL associated with theposting influencer. For example, if an influencer chooses to postinformation on their designated social website about a particular fansite of a professional sports team, upon acceptance of the advertiser'soffer by the influencer, the information may be automatically posted tothe designated social network by the present invention. In this way, thepresent invention may properly code the posting to the influencer'sdesignated social network and may further insure that the posting isuniquely identified and associated with the intended influencer.

In addition to acceptance by the influencer, the present invention mayalso allow for an approval stage by the advertiser of the influencerwilling to accept the offer to endorse the product and/or service on theinfluencer's designated social website. Thus, after acceptance theadvertiser may be alerted that an influencer has agreed to post theadvertiser's information and may then request an approval from theadvertiser that the influencer is acceptable and/or the posting chosenby the influencer is suitable. Such approval may be necessary if aninfluencer is provided the ability to change and/or manipulate theinformation regarding the product before providing that information on adesignated social website.

In an embodiment of the present invention, click-throughs on informationplaced on any designated website of a particular influencer may betracked to provide a record of the earnings of the influencer based onthe cost-per-click price offered by the advertiser, and to tally anengagement score for the influencer. An engagement score may be afunction of the number of click-throughs from an individual posting ofinformation by an influencer on a particular designated social networkwebsite and the number of followers of that influencer on thatparticular social network, for example. An engagement score may also beinfluenced by the sheer number of click-throughs over each of thedesignated social networks for which the influencer has informationposted.

The information provided by the advertiser for posting to the designatedsocial network may further include pictures and/or videos. For example,a small thumbnail picture may be provided along with a description of aproduct to draw the attention of the followers of the influencer. Imagesand/or videos provided by the advertiser may also include otherinfluencers such as celebrities for example.

As will be apparent to those skilled in the art, the engines of thepresent invention may draw on any number of communication access pointsand media sources, including wired and wireless, radio and cable,telephone, television and internet, personal electronic devices,satellite, databases, data files, and the like, in order to increasemedia asset content in the vault, contribute media asset content to thevault, and to best allow for recommendations and delivery.

Although the invention has been described and pictured in an exemplaryform with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that thepresent disclosure of the exemplary form has been made by way ofexample, and that numerous changes in the details of construction andcombination and arrangement of parts and steps may be made withoutdeparting from the spirit and scope of the invention as set forth in theclaims hereinafter.

1. A method for delivery of an advertisement to a social network,comprising the steps of: creating at least one address linkcorrespondent to a location in a computing memory of at least one assetassociated with the advertisement, wherein at least one attribute isassigned to the at least one address link; providing the at least oneaddress link to a social network web site via a computerizedtelecommunications network; and providing access to the at least oneasset from the social network web site via the computerizedtelecommunications network responsive to verifying of the at least oneattribute; wherein the at least one attribute corresponds to a user ofthe social network web site.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thesocial network is selected from the group consisting of Facebook™,Twitter™, Myspace™, Youtube™, flickr™, Linkedin™, del.icio.us™,Friendster™, imvu™, vox™, AOL™, Xing™, Chinay™, Nicktropolis™, andRateitall™.
 3. The method of claim 1, further providing at least oneimage with the at least one address link.
 4. The method of claim 1,further providing at least one predefined message with the at least oneaddress link.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the providing of the atleast one address link is limited to a user with more than 1000connections on the social network website.